


Will U B Mine?

by debwalsh



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Boys In Love, Brock Rumlow is an ass in every universe, Established Relationship, Genderfluid Character, Idiots in Love, M/M, Past Valentine Trauma, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Thank you fic, Valentine's Day Fluff, grumpy steve rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-27 04:20:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17759666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/debwalsh/pseuds/debwalsh
Summary: Valentine Prompt (thank you Karadin!): You tell me every year you hate Valentines Day, that it's a made up commercial holiday and romance means being spontaneous, so I don't get you anything even though we've been a happy committed couple for awhile, but you'd really like something on Valentines Day, you're just to embarrassed to ask (past Valentines trauma).This is a thank you fic, born out of conversations among a group of Stucky writers over on Twitter.  To all the people who leave kudos, who stop to leave a comment, who bookmark, who share - thank you.  This story is for you.And please don’t forget i’m participating as a creator in the Fandom Trumps Hate auction -https://fandomtrumpshate.dreamwidth.org/.





	Will U B Mine?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zacharypay1_Alisa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zacharypay1_Alisa/gifts), [BethofAus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BethofAus/gifts), [Lovesfic (me23)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/me23/gifts), [Deisderium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deisderium/gifts), [VenusMonstrosa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VenusMonstrosa/gifts), [amethystkrystal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amethystkrystal/gifts), [notlucy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notlucy/gifts), [djchika](https://archiveofourown.org/users/djchika/gifts), [mambo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mambo/gifts), [steebadore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/steebadore/gifts), [belovedmuerto](https://archiveofourown.org/users/belovedmuerto/gifts), [crinklefries](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crinklefries/gifts), [chicklette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chicklette/gifts), [tigrislilium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigrislilium/gifts), [ColeIsADreamer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ColeIsADreamer/gifts), [katsai25](https://archiveofourown.org/users/katsai25/gifts), [Royal_Ermine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Royal_Ermine/gifts), [LokiLover14](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LokiLover14/gifts), [OriginalCeenote](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OriginalCeenote/gifts), [Tipsy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tipsy/gifts), [karadin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/karadin/gifts), [Noukian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Noukian/gifts), [pettikotes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pettikotes/gifts).



> So this has been in the works for a few weeks, and the plan was for several of us to write short pieces to thank our favorite commenters. I’m apparently the only one of us crazy enough to actually follow through, but that’s because I’d already made a commitment to my Patreon patrons, who’d selected the prompt. And I had a lot of fun writing this. A little bit of angst, a whole lot of stupid boys in love (tm).
> 
> I hope you enjoy, and I hope you take the time to visit the works of the other authors in the group - all busy at work on bang stories:
> 
> Deisderium  
> Venusmonstrosa  
> Amethystkrystal  
> Notlucy  
> Djchika  
> Mambo  
> Steebadore  
> Belovedmuerto  
> Crinklefries

Steve’s shoulders rose - or his neck retracted, Nat wasn’t entirely sure - and a piteous sigh wafted up from the general vicinity of his mouth. Possibly nose, but she was going to go with mouth.

Ah. Today we are featuring Dramatic!Steve with a side of fried angst.

Nat bit the inside of her mouth so she wouldn’t laugh out loud - a sure way to get Dramatic!Steve to be even more dramatical. And while that was always highly amusing, the power pout was just too much to bear for long. Without bursting out laughing again. Hence, the biting.

She let him stew in his own angst-laced juices for a few more minutes, noting the frequency between sighs was decreasing inversely to the volume. If she didn’t respond soon, he was going to go full-on screaming.

“Okay, spill,” she commanded, knocking against his shoulder with her own.

“Ugh. Valentine’s Day.”

Well, that was anti-climactic. Because every year, Steve mounted his soapbox in early January to launch his pre-diatribe to his introductory diatribe to his official diatribe followed by his concluding diatribe regarding the Rampant De-Romanticization of Love by the Commercially Driven Valentine’s Day and Its Subsequent Societal Damage. TM.

It was a winner that all his friends couldn’t wait to witness each year, as Steven G. Rogers managed to piss on everyone’s Valentine’s plans, loudly, repeatedly, and without bias. Needless to say, people either tended to avoid Steve from January to the beginning of March, or they gave him so much to do he didn’t have time to bitch and moan about Valentine’s Day.

Fortunately, you handed Steve a cause, and he was easily distracted provided no lacy hearts were in evidence.

The only person immune to the annual onslaught was Steve’s boyfriend of ten years and best friend for longer, James “Bucky” Barnes. He’d learned long before they started dating how much Steve loathed the corporate America designed holiday, and so he’d never made the mistake of giving Steve a single Valentine, or any other sort of gift or overture on the holiday. Bucky tended to be noticeably more flush this time of year than anyone in their friend group, too, and there was a clear line of cause and effect at work there.

“Wait, let me put my ear buds in, then you can hold forth,” Nat told him with an impish grin.

“No wait. I have ... I have something different to say.”

“Something that doesn’t start with Valentine’s Day sucks, and ends with ass?”

“Kinda.”

Well, this was new. “Okay?”

“I maybe don’t hate it as much as I’ve said.”

“Okay, now you’ve got my attention. Say what the fuck?”

“I had a bad Valentine’s Day experience in fifth grade.”

“Oh? And why am I only hearing about this now? I’ve known you since kindergarten.”

“Because I was a confused little bi-guy in fifth grade, and I didn’t realize it wasn’t socially acceptable for boys to send boys Valentines after the age of six.”

“Oh.”

Nat remembered Steve in grade school - tiny, tow-headed, tyrannical in his belief in justice. As likely to take on a bully as he was to end up in the hospital on a ventilator.

And fluid in his sexuality even then. She remembered how broken-hearted he’d been when his mother had tried to explain to him why he couldn’t wear his favorite dress to school, and why he had to leave the pink bows he loved so much at home. And why polished Mary Janes were not an appropriate choice for footwear for a child named Steve.

Those little parental course corrections had chipped away at Steve over the years, dulling his shine and masking his fire until he’d reached his teens and finally broke free to declare his gender as fluid, and his sexuality as pan. Bucky had been right there, and Steve no sooner got the words out at the lunch table than Bucky turned to him and asked if Steve would be his personfriend, and let Bucky show how much he mattered to him.

They’d been together ever since, and ultimately, Steve’s Ma had accepted that her bright, beautiful boy liked to wear skirts on occasion, and painted his nails, and wore eyeliner (no mascara needed with those lashes), favored bows his hair, and loved a boy named Bucky.

But in fifth grade ... the world hadn’t been very tolerant of the boy who didn’t fit into the rigid concepts of masculinity.

“Who?”

“Who do you think?”

“Well, I know it wasn’t James, because he loved you even then.”

“Did he?”

“Steve, I don’t think there’s a moment since you met that James hasn’t loved you. Or that you haven’t loved him.”

“Well, I did have a crush in fifth grade. A not-Bucky crush. Crush is a good word for it. Cos it crushed me. Get it?”

“Gallows humor. Ha-ha. Tell me who the fucker was that broke your heart and soured your Valentines, and I will rip out his spine and make him wear it as a bow tie.”

“Um, wow. That’s a vivid image. Huh. You know, that would make an interesting art project for next semester’s honors class. The human spine as fashion accoutrement.”

“You are a sick fucker.”

“You offered to do a spinectomy and tie the guy’s bow tie with it.”

“Perhaps a blood eagle is a better option, then. There, we’ve compromised. Now tell me. Or I shall do things to your spine.”

“You wouldn’t!”

“I would. I know that spot that makes your left leg jiggle like a dog scratching fleas. Now, reveal the perpetrator, or know my wrath!”

“Brock.”

“That hyper-masculine douche who kept stealing your inhaler?”

“What can I say, I like the bad boys.”

“James is not a bad boy.”

“Have you seen him in leather?”

“Okay, I’ll give you that. He’s sort of ... bad boy adjacent. But seriously, Brock?”

Steve sighed again. “Yeah. And I sent him a Valentine. By then, we weren’t all sending everyone in the class Valentines, so it was kinda obvious that it meant more than my Mom made me fill out a card for every kid in the class.”

“Why don’t I remember this? I mean, surely there must have been a fight -“

“There wasn’t.”

“There was always a fight when it came to you, Steve.”

“There wasn’t. He invited me to meet him after school.”

“Steve ...”

“He kissed me. Once. And he told me that that was gonna have to last me for the rest of my life, because no one was ever gonna want to be my Valentine. Ever.”

“Oh God. Y’know, I think Jack’s still in touch with that asshole. I could do some serious damage with a stiletto ...”

“Nat, you’re gonna be a world-class surgeon one day. You do not want to waste your potential on a guy who grew up to look like Teen Wolf - and I’m not talkin’ Hoechlin.”

“Yeah. By graduation, he was in drastic need of a depilatory. You think it was because he jerked off too much?”

“There is no such thing as jerking off too much.”

“Says the boy who’s been in a committed relationship for ten years. You met your soulmate in middle school. But if you don’t hate Valentine’s Day, why the big production every year?”

“Cos I did it once, and ever since, Buck hasn’t been interested in doing anything for Valentine’s Day. So if I pre-empt any thought of it, I don’t have to feel bad that ... he didn’t do anything again.”

“So let me get this straight ... you want Barnes to woo you on V-Day? You want what - the whole thing, chocolates, roses, candlelight, a pricey Hallmark card?” 

“And those little sweetheart candies. Will U B Mine? I want it all, Nat. And I’ve talked myself into such a hole, I’ve made Brock’s meanness a reality.”

“Well, Steve, I can’t say I disagree with you. But you know the only way you’re going to be able to fix this is to go all out yourself.”

“Huh?”

“You want Bucky to know you’re all in on Valentine’s Day? Go all in on Valentine’s Day. Pink it up mister!”

&&&

Whenever he could slip away from Bucky, Steve started streaming Valentine rom-coms on his iPad, and loitering with intent at the Hallmark store. He began a quiet campaign of interviewing couples who looked sort of happy to see how they celebrated Valentine’s Day. He posted an anonymous poll for suggestions for the perfect Valentine’s Day.  

Steve Rogers was nothing if not thorough.

He researched Valentine’s art until he couldn’t take anymore cheese.

He asked for suggestions of romantic songs from customers at the coffee shop where he worked two days a week.

He made the mistake of asking his friends for suggestions on how to set the perfect mood, and Pepper mistook that for Steve was getting ready to pop The Question. Within seconds, his lock screen was blowing up with texts. Fortunately, no one included Buck in any of them.

So, okay. It wasn’t a bad assumption for people to make. It wasn’t as embarrassing as Steve “I Hate All Things Valentines” Rogers suddenly getting all gooey over the artificial holiday.

And it wasn’t like he really was. He just liked the idea of the romance, to be honest. He wanted a little wooing in his life. He and Buck ... they were a sure thing, and had been for ten years. And it wasn’t like Buck was all caveman and insensitive - he was a wonderful boyfriend, an attentive and generous lover. It’s just ... nobody’d ever given him flowers. It was okay that no one ever gave him chocolates, because he was deathly allergic. That would be a sign, to be honest, that the relationship had gone south. But a card, lovingly picked out just for him, a sweet message inscribed in the forgotten art of cursive ... Steve’s inner Cupid was just melting at the thought.

And then he had a thought. Or two. Maybe three. And then he had a plan.

&&&

Bucky arrived at their building and let himself in the vestibule with a sigh. Outside, the world was going through its annual Valentine insanity with every restaurant in town booked weeks in advance, every flower shop sold out by noon, every card store picked over and left in disarray. And the singles, looking sad and left out, exiled from the Promised Land of Romance. It was all so arbitrary and kind of mean, really.

Sometimes he got why Steve hated the holiday the way he did. His sister Becca was bemoaning her single status, cursing her ex for having blocked her from using all the couples coupons she’d been husbanding. Bucky told her she should grab her best friend, pretend she was gay for a day, and use them anyway.

She’d asked him if he was okay with her appropriating his sexuality, and he’d told her if it made her happy, she could wear his clothes so long as she didn’t use his name. The last thing he needed was having to bail her out of jail masquerading as him. It would not look as good on his resume as interning at the top environmental law firm in New York did.

He rode the elevator up to their floor feeling kind of exhausted, defeated. Competition for who could show off the best, who could do the most elaborate, most expensive, most out there Valentine’s date ... it was like blood sport, with little naked guys with wings.

He loved Steve with all his heart, and he might wish for a little more romance in their lives, but he had to admit, his feisty little guy had a point about the de-romanticization of love through commercialization. It’s just ... well, no use pining over something that wasn’t gonna happen. Like ever. He knew what he was getting into when he asked Steve to be his personfriend. He’d never regretted that decision, and he never expected to.

As he opened the door to their apartment, he realized it was dark inside, which meant that Steve wasn’t home yet. Probably working late in the studio. He lost track of time often, and Bucky could go days without seeing him, only to find himself with an armful of wired, horny Steve, amped up on lack of sleep, hormones, and way too much Red Bull. Then they’d fuck like proverbial bunnies, and Steve would sleep it off for three days.

What it lacked in romance it more than made up with in great sex. But, as Bucky laid his keys in the ceramic dish Steve made in ninth grade art class and reached for the light switch, there was something to be said for slow, deep kisses, and touches that lingered.

He flicked on the light and found himself blinking. And blinking some more.

And wow.

And what the actual fuck?

He did a three-sixty and confirmed that yeah, was his and Steve’s apartment under all the paper hearts and wow, actual flowers, and a fishbowl full of those candy hearts with the slogans on them, and when did they have a six foot tall Valentine card standing in the middle of their living room?  

It was huge. Red, white, and pink, with lacy edges and “Will U B Mine?” written in a loopy cursive that he recognized as Steve’s. There was a ribbon hanging off the one side, labeled “Pull me.” So he did.

And what he revealed about made his heart stop and then start pumping blood south.

Steve, his blonde hair tousled like he’d just been freshly fucked, his lips kiss-bitten red, his color high and his body ... half naked save for the white satin little off the shoulder toga whose skirt barely covered his junk, thigh high silk stockings and little red pumps, and a pair of fluffy wings stuck on his back. Oh, and a little white bow and arrow set.

Steve grinned at him, lifted the bow and arrow set, and shot a rubber tipped arrow at Bucky.

“There. You’re now my sex slave.”

“I already was. I’m liking the get-up. But what’d you do with my boyfriend, ‘cos I know he had nothing to do with this.”

“Happy Valentine’s Day?” Steve asked, his voice and his shoulders rising.

“Since when?”

“Since always.”

“You hate Valentine’s Day.”

“Actually, I don’t. I just hate what happened to me one year on Valentine’s Day. And I realize it was time to put that away. I know you like it, and you’ve always been a good sport about me hating it. So ... this is for you,” Steve concluded, doing a little pirouette to show off the goods.

And yeah, Bucky was definitely impressed. Very interested. And maybe a little teary-eyed. And definitely a little hard.

“You mean it?”

“Yeah. I got a lot of years to make up for, so I went big. That okay?”

“Um. Wait right here,” Bucky answered, chewing his lip as he held up a finger to hold Steve in place. Then he ran into the bedroom to his closet, where he dug out a box he’d been cherishing for far too long.

Steve was still standing there looking more devilish than angelic in his Cupid outfit, and Bucky hurried over with his box. He laid it gently, almost reverently, on their little dining room table. Then he stepped back and presented the box to Steve with a smile.

“What’s this, Buck?”

“The past 15 years.”

“What?”

“The past 15 years. Starting in fifth grade.”

Steve stepped up and lifted the lid off the box, revealing numerous Valentine’s cards, bouquets of dried flowers, and little heart-shaped boxes full of even smaller candy hearts. “Buck?”

“Ma wouldn’t let me send you a Valentine’s card in fifth grade. She said that boys shouldn’t send cards to other boys, ‘cos they’d get the wrong idea. But it would’ve been the right idea, y’know? I already knew that I liked you then, and I wanted you to like me back. But she wouldn’t let me take the card to school. So I saved it. And then every year after that, I wanted to give you a card, or flowers, or candy, but you hated Valentine’s Day so much. So I got them anyway, and saved them. Here. Hoping some day I could show them to you, and you’d know how much I love you.”

“Buck, I can’t believe ... Jesus, I’ve been a stupid shit. If only Winnie’d let you give me that card, our lives would’ve been so different. I did send a boy a card that year, I had a crush on him and he humiliated me, broke my heart - that’s why I’ve been so off on Valentine’s Day. But if you’d been the one to give me a card ... Geeze!” Steve exclaimed, and climbed right up on the table to walk across it on his knees. He reached out and placed a hand on each side of Bucky’s face. “I know how much you love me. Do you know how much I love you?” he asked, pulling a little satin drawstring bag out of the top of his toga thingie.  

Bucky smiled and closed the gap between them, planting a sweet kiss on Steve’s nose. “Think I got a good idea, punk.”

“Yeah, jerk?” Steve opened the bag and shook out a garish Ring Pop and held it out to Bucky. “Then will you marry me?”

Bucky smiled wider, and reached into his pocket to pull out another card, this one a new one for this year. He handed it to Steve, who shook his head and held the candy ring a bit higher. Bucky nodded, putting out his hand so Steve could slide the toy ring onto his finger. Then Steve took the card and opened it, gasping quietly as he read the inscription.

“I’ll love you til the end of the line. Yours forever, Buck.”

Bucky leaned in again, and caught Steve’s lips with his own. “Mine,” he murmured, smiling against Steve’s lips.

END

**Author's Note:**

> So I have a couple more prompts in the queue, and I hope to get them written over the next few days since I need to let my Stucky AU Big Bang story percolate for another day or two before I dive back in.
> 
> As always, comments, kudos, bookmarks, and shares are much, much appreciated.


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